Up front I wish to apologize for taking some of your time, when I might have been able to suss it out from on-line or manuals, etc… However, I run a Pousada in Brasil (think Bed and Breakfast for those of you in the US), and I get to look at things late at night or middle of the day for a few minutes. My wife and I just bought this place. the phone system (to put it politely) sucks, the people we bought it from wired up the system themselves. It works, but there are many quirks and hoops to jump thru to pass a call to a guest cabin, or to allow the guest in the cabin to make a call. In addition, since I don’t speak much Portuguese yet (more every day though), my wife must handle all of the phone duties. So we want something that will allow her to receive calls whereever she is.
Our needs:
- a reliable phone system, to receive and make calls to the outside world (via Brasil Telecom).
- Allow calls to be routed to whereever my wife happens to be, either forward to cell phone, or another phone on the property.
- Allow our guest to make/receive calls from their cabins.
- Integrate a VOIP system to make calls less expensive; ie to Skype, MSN Messenger, iChat, AIM, etc.
- Other features that would be useful, that I don’t know that Asterisk can do for me.
We have a 256kb connection to the internet, that may get faster in the next year, but not necessarily. Our telephone company is Brasil Telecom. We have access to hardware to run Linux and the rest of the stuff required for Asterisk (I think).
So is Asterisk for a business like us, small but hopefully growing? We have 9 cabins, with the idea of adding maybe 5 to 10 more in the next 5 years.
Again, thanks for your replies.
Craig Snively
Hotel Pousada Colina de Pedra.